SAINT JOHNcountenance the problem of distinguishing true from false miracles, motivated by nothing
less than the problem of distinguishing true and false messiahs. The Greek text employs
a range of terms for events that we now gather under the Latinate termmiracle—such as
erga(‘‘works’’),semia(‘‘signs’’),dunameis(‘‘powers’’), andterata(‘‘wonders’’)—and this
may be seen as a relic of the variability and uncertainty of the terrain they demarcate.^6
Miracles, in short, stand at the center of a complex relation between faith and reason: on
the one hand, the recognition of a miracle depends upon faith, as the evidence offered
for it must appear contrary to all reason; on the other hand, the occurrence of a miracle
functions as evidence for one’s faith in the truth of any revelation. It is at this intersection
that miracles take on their most political valence: as Hobbes recognized, deciding upon
the truth or falsity of a miraculous event is a function of authority, on the one hand, but,
on the other—as can be seen in the cases of prophets, apostles, and saints—miracles
themselves produce authority, serving as warrants for the legitimacy of the figures who
perform them. The significance of our other two terms can be laid out more quickly:
saints are those who, above all else, work miracles, the wonder of which, in turn, is capable
of effecting conversion.
That Rawls has produced works is beyond dispute: he has written a great deal that
has been read widely with deep appreciation for some time. To recapture the sense of a
miracle, paradox, or scandal here, it should be noted that it is not entirely clear why these
works should have been attended by wonder, why, that is, anybody has cared, continues
to care, or should come to care about Rawls’s work. Rawls’s oeuvre comprises: a first
major statement,A Theory of Justice(1971), around which revolves all his subsequent
work; the revision of hisTheoryinPolitical Liberalism(1993); its extension to interna-
tional relations inThe Law of Peoples(1999); its working notes in hisCollected Papers
(1999); and the teaching that went on concurrently with its formulation inLectures on
the History of Moral Philosophy(2000) and in the forthcomingLectures on Social and
Political Thought; and its final restatement inJustice as Fairness(2001). These texts com-
prise some two to three thousand printed pages, and yet they are devoted exclusively to
what had been, and in some quarters continues to be, the dubious topic of justice. It is
certainly remarkable, then, that by one recent estimateA Theory of Justicealone has sold
somewhat better than a quarter of a million copies in English and has been translated
into two dozen languages since its initial publication.^7 To this one might add some three
or more thousand academic publications generated in response to Rawls, countless more
citations made of his work in the work of others, conferences convened, institutions
established, funded, and secured under his name, as well as the students he has instructed
personally or by proxy, his work long having served as a staple of undergraduate and
graduation education.^8
A measure of his work’s more concrete political impact could be based upon its
circulation among and influence upon policy makers, public institutions, and, perhaps
above all, judges and other legal practitioners, though these are more difficult to trace.
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